Licenses, Copyright and the Arch Wiki

thisoldman · 2009-09-07 20:21:37

I've written a wiki article explaining how to enable font anti-aliasing in Java apps and how to switch away from the default font, Lucida, that Java apps use. Unfortunately, it describes procedures for the closed(?) source Sun JRE.

I've included a 6 line snippet from the file /opt/java/jre/lib/fontconfig.properties.src. Three of those included lines are

# @(#)linux.fontconfig.properties    1.2 03/10/28
#
# Copyright 2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.

I've attempted to read the icense agreements that accompany the Sun JRE. I get simultaneously put to sleep and repulsed by the legalese.

Before I post the article, and hoping to prevent bad things, are there any guidelines for this. I think my use of the code snippet and the procedures I give are covered under "fair use."

Or, to whom should I send the article for review?

IANAL -- I Am Not A Lawyer.
Anal? Yes, at times. A lawyer? No.

andre.ramaciotti · 2009-09-07 20:30:41

The existence of copyright doesn't mean the code is closed. GNU code is copyrighted, but it isn't closed.

The copyright is necessary or a company could sell GPL code without agreeing with the license and nothing could be done because the code has no owner.

thisoldman · 2009-09-07 20:55:56

My ulterior purpose in asking was to not ruffle feathers. There are warnings to not include copyrighted material. I don't want to create an example for others.

andre.ramaciotti · 2009-09-07 21:11:57

In this case, I believe the warnings should be updated or articles that quote Wikipedia should be edited.

Wikipedia texts are copyrighted, but are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

There's no problem in using copyrighted text as long as their licenses allow it, so the warnings should be something like "Do NOT include copyright material whose license do not allow copying/sharing".

fukawi2 · 2009-09-07 22:42:40

I think this would fall under "Fair use" but at the same time... IANAL either

thisoldman · 2009-09-08 00:07:14

Oh, I'm old! I just now remembered why the file bothered me. I print a copy of the file, just pointing to different fonts.

The edited version is simply an emended version of the original. Which it has to be considering the files are config files. Where the original has 20 lines similar to these:

serif.plain.latin-1=-b&h-lucidabright-medium-r-normal--*-%d-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
serif.bold.latin-1=-b&h-lucidabright-demibold-r-normal--*-%d-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
serif.italic.latin-1=-b&h-lucidabright-medium-i-normal--*-%d-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1

I have this:

serif.plain.latin-1=-misc-dejavu serif-medium-r-normal-*-*-%d-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
serif.bold.latin-1=-misc-dejavu serif-bold-r-normal-*-*-%d-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
serif.italic.latin-1=-misc-dejavu serif-medium-i-normal-*-*-%d-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1

I suppose the best thing to do is to note the original copyright in the second file. You would have a hard time setting up any config file without doing copying.

I'm done. Thanks for helping me think this through.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-09-07 20:21:37

Licenses, Copyright and the Arch Wiki

#2 2009-09-07 20:30:41

Re: Licenses, Copyright and the Arch Wiki

#3 2009-09-07 20:55:56

Re: Licenses, Copyright and the Arch Wiki

#4 2009-09-07 21:11:57

Re: Licenses, Copyright and the Arch Wiki

#5 2009-09-07 22:42:40

Re: Licenses, Copyright and the Arch Wiki

#6 2009-09-08 00:07:14

Re: Licenses, Copyright and the Arch Wiki

Board footer